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Puff Daddy Still Rich, Still Puff Daddy

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Puff Daddy Still Rich, Still Puff Daddy

Puff Daddy is back and he’s the highest paid rapper around. Sean Comb came in at number one on Forbes’s annual list of “The World’s Highest-Paid Rap Acts” earning $60 million last year, The Los Angeles Times reports.

It’s worth noting that while Sean Combs can technically still be classified as a rap artist, those stacks of cash overwhelmingly did not come from music. The Los Angeles Times reports that his business endeavors include the TV network Revolt, alkaline water brand Aquahydrate, his clothing line Sean John, and Ciroc vodka.

Sources speculated name brand alkaline water was invented to fight death-inducing Ciroc hangovers. Throw on a Sean John hoody, flip the channel to Revolt, sip your Aquahydrate and you can recover like Puff.

Coming in second is Jay Z with $56 million, a portion of which came from his On the Run Tour with Beyoncé. Jay’s also got Roc Nation, marriage to Beyoncé, Armand de Brignac champagne, and marriage with Beyoncé keeping loaded.

If first is the worst and second is the best, coming in third, although perhaps the only one without a hairy chest is Drake. Cheers to Drake, because according to The Los Angeles Times his $39.5 million is the only one in the top three substantially made up of music sales.

The most important Sean Combs takeaway from all this is that we can still call him Puff Daddy, a moniker he reclaimed for his upcoming album.

[Image via Getty Images]


Cara Delevingne Wishes She Could Pour Molten Cheese on the Paparazzi

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Cara Delevingne Wishes She Could Pour Molten Cheese on the Paparazzi

Cara Delevingne recognizes that as a runway star-turned-Hollywood actress, she cannot avoid the paparazzi. Still, before she joined Kate Moss in Milan to promote their joint Mango campaign today, she wanted to make her feelings known: Cara cannot deal with these cameramen invading her privacy, i.e. making her feel “like a zoo animal,” anymore.

Cara’s responses ranged from serious to a tad silly, which is how she seems to deal with paparazzi in general. (Take this video of her telling them to “stay the fuck back,” though jokingly.)

Regardless of Cara’s tone, fellow supermodel Kendall Jenner got the gist.

[Image via Getty Images]

“Bling Ring” Member Accused of Stalking and Solicitation of Rape

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“Bling Ring” Member Accused of Stalking and Solicitation of Rape

“Bling Ring” member Nicholas Prugo has been accused of stalking and solicitation of rape, The Wrap reports. Burglarizing Paris Hilton’s ridiculous home and attempting to take her damn dog too are the stuff Sofia Coppola films are made of, but if allegations are true, harassing a woman and seeking men on the internet to sexually assault her is just some seriously evil shit.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Prugo and Edward Feinstein of plotting to harass West Hollywood esthetician Dawn Daluise and her two daughters. The alleged scheme took place from December 2013 to April 2014, in which the friends allegedly posted an ad online soliciting men to rape Daluise.

If convicted, Prugo faces up to 14 years in state prison. Feinstein would face up to seven years in county jail. Prugo is up against a heftier sentence due to his prior Bling Ring convictions.

[Image via AP Images]

FBI: Man Wanted for Embezzling $8.7 Million Hid in the Appalachian Trail for Six Years

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FBI: Man Wanted for Embezzling $8.7 Million Hid in the Appalachian Trail for Six Years

The Appalachian Trail seems like America’s Bermuda Triangle. It’s where horny politicians conveniently go missing. It’s the 2,200 miles of wilderness my boyfriends decide to go when things start to get serious. And for a Kentucky man who left his family and wanted to avoid a near $9 million embezzlement case, it’s a great place to relax for six years, New York Daily News reports.

Life was swell for James Hammes, 53, before the FBI learned of his scent and took him away in handcuffs on May 16 of this year from a Virginia bed-and-breakfast to an Ohio county jail, The Columbus Dispatch reports. Hammes, whose trail name was “Bismarck” has been hiking the Appalachian Trail since 2009 after he was accused of embezzling $8.7 million from his Ohio-based employer, New York Daily News reports. James Hammes, who also ditched his wife and daughter before beginning his journey, sounds like an asshole. However to the friendly hiker trash community, “Bismarck” was a really nice guy who loved selfies and water gun fights.

“He was a little more gregarious and social than the typical hiker,” David Miller, an Appalachian Trail guidebook author told New York Daily News. The FBI was tipped off by a hiker snitch who recognized “Bismarck” after watching an episode CNBC’s series American Greed which he was featured on.

The man, the myth, and the legend of “Bismarck” has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial next month in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, New York Daily News reports.

For a long read of “Bismarck’s” complete adventure, read “A Long Walk’s End” by William Browning on SB Nation.

[Image via Butler County Jail]

Selfies Are Deadlier Than Sharks 

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Selfies Are Deadlier Than Sharks 

Bad news for the narcissistic. Not only are we embarrassing ourselves with our selfies, but we appear to be killing ourselves as well. So far this year, there have been 12 reported deaths while attempting to take a selfie, compared to only eight from shark attacks, UPROXX reports.

Now obviously the reason for this figure is not the selfie itself, but that humans are idiots.

Earlier this month a tourist died trying to take a “worldly” selfie while on the stairs of the Taj Mahal, the BBC Reports. A woman died this year in Moscow by shooting herself in the head while attempting to take a “cute” selfie with a gun, and a man in Spain was gored to death while taking a “badass” selfie during the running of the bulls, Mirror reports.

Last one to take a selfie with a shark’s a rotten egg!

[Image via Shutterstock]

Britney Spears Tells a Bodyguard That She's Britney, Bitch on Neil Patrick Harris' New Show

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Neil Patrick Harris subjects his celebrity pals to some elaborate pranks on his new NBC variety show Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris. Last week’s season premiere had him auditioning for The Voice in disguise, to Pharrell’s unamusement. This week he roped in Britney Spears to punk three bodyguards who think they are auditioning for her Piece of Me Vegas residency.

Harris and Joe Jonas direct her throughout, getting her to say things like, “Hey, I’m the one and only Britney Spears. Nice to meet you too. You’re not going to kiss my hand?” They instruct her to get these bodyguards to stand close even while rehearsing choreography. But Britney goes slightly off script, like when Neil told her to go “Hi, I’m Britney bitch” and she went It’s Britney, bitch.” As she should.

Fall Is the Worst Season

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Fall Is the Worst Season

Well, great, it’s fall now, so you can tuck away those freckles and dim that dazzled stupor of being skin-warm and lazy and slightly more alive. Where just a minute ago you had in your hand a copper cup sweating ginger beer and mint all over it like grass on your knees, now you’ve got a torture rack of #2 pencils and a guy trailing behind you pretending he’s being shot for J. Crew, and where mornings brightened into afternoons melted into twilight deepened into dark, hot, damp forever, you’ve now got a day that’s organized like fucking high school. Nothing’s changed about it, really, except that fall feeling; time to wake up early, time to work, time to check your to-do list, in which the last item is “die.”

Fall is the year’s Sunday, cheerful industriousness that flips imperceptibly into terror, buoyed by the pitch-black gurgle of never having enough time. Fall is seasonal twilight, the kind where the air drops 20 degrees when the sun disappears behind the buildings and you look around, suddenly detached from your body, having lost track of your desires. Fall is the season of requirement, when your brain turns on again and you are opening envelopes and filing papers and remembering you never sent the wedding gifts and you’ve got the sensation of a downhill with the requirement of an uphill and your sock drawer’s an absolute crime zone and you’ve got the taste of iron in your mouth.

Fall is the worst season.

Seasons are taught to us like a foursquare, a perfect schematic in which every part pulls equal weight to form a harmonious whole. This is a lie. The repetition of a cycle does not imply peace. The placement of seasons matters greatly; each must be weighed in conjunction with its neighbors. Like conversations, seasons tend to devolve, but they begin beautifully. Fall comes as temperate relief after summer, which comes as bright release after spring, which comes as capricious but blossoming happiness after so long in the cold. What I mean is that seasons always get better, with one exception: Fall is the only season after which the next is definitely worse.

(You might say, it’s that internal devolution that matters—that proves decline as the norm and not the exception. I hear it: fall ends in brittleness, winter in desperation, summer in the garbagey undecided heat. However, I was raised in the hundred-degree urban swamp of Houston, Texas, i.e. outside the cultural centers where Big Fall prevails, i.e. I love garbage and will not be distracted from the central issue, which is that 60 percent of people in a recent unscientific poll on this website picked fall as their favorite season, and only 2 percent—i.e. me, my phone, and my work computer—picked fall as the worst.)

“Things getting cold” is just not a theme worth honoring. Fall is an off-ramp straight into the worst time of your life. “But what about the people who actually like winter best,” you might say. I don’t know, what about the people who actually think we live in a post-racial America? There are people who say they like winter best (roughly 11 percent of people, according to Gallup), but this is a cohort dominated by children, who disproportionately prefer winter because of the presents, the school break, and the fact that they don’t have to buy their own coats. There are also, of course, a certain number of well-adjusted people who are able to “appreciate” all seasons for “what they are.” I live with one of these people; clearly his life cries out for a strong rethinking. The thing to remember, anyway, is that all these goddamn winter-lovers—masochists, children, holiday fetishists, weather Pollyannas—are complaining like the rest of us come February. There is no way around winter’s merciless brutality, which is the exact thing that redeems it. Honesty impairs anyone competing for the shitcrown of the worst. Fall is as superficially blissful as it is internally deceptive, but winter has the exact same surface and essence. It’s pain as opposed to anxiety. It’s preferable to fall in the same way that I’d rather be dead than thinking about it.

Winter only flirts with dishonesty, actually, with the involvement of those aforementioned holiday fetishists, who are intolerable by Christmas and maniacal for New Year’s and by Valentine’s animate piles of sale-section CVS trash. I’m not talking the jolly homemaker who likes big dinners and getting the family together; the true holiday fetishist is a product of overheated capitalism, a festivity-camouflaged modern-day ghoul. The holiday fetishist loves rituals of consumption, no matter their substance, and these rituals of consumption really get going in the fall.

It all starts with the back-to-school feeling, a sensation beloved by freaks. This feeling is prim, ambitious, organized, high-strung, pedantic and subtly deviant if sustained over time. Driven by an instinct that’s like a narc inside the heart, the back-to-school feeling manifests materially in various accessories of regimentation and office LARPing. And school supplies, which mainly consist of containers for other school supplies, are cute and fine in their proper context (distracting children as they’re trained for the workforce). But to crave the sensation of these objects without being trapped within the institution that requires them is twisted almost beyond measure. It’s political kitsch, regression to a dollhouse. “FRESH PENCILS,” screech these malcontent psyches. “PLEASE, TEACHER, GIVE ME A TASK!” And yet, inside, the animal self reigns.

As an adult, there are other fall purchases to consider—mostly in the apparel arena, subcategory Comfort Is a Lie. Time to shine, collarbone-shivery girl in a molting pyramid of throw blankets; it’s your season, guy who has ever considered the crime of fingerless gloves. Oh, yeah—you like your sweaters? You like to be cozy? What a nice mug, so oversized, hope those “fall flavors” catch like sourceless emotion, liquid gimcrack in your throat. But of course, sweaters and mugs—at least being functional—are not the worst things you could buy in the fall. The worst things in any situation are those which are primarily or purely decorative (like fall, one might say, itself). Those gourds, those wreaths, meant to signify—what? Latent Puritanism? “It’s decorative gourd season”—forget the motherfuckers—is a dictionary synonym for “I’m white.” Fall’s color scheme is just another thing detached from its native origins and permanently associated with a long series of Mayflower babies, from the settlers whose startup was smallpox Thanksgiving to the men who go to coffee shops to stroke their book spines and pretend to read.

This would all even be bearable if the material palette weren’t tied so sternly to fall’s forced activities, which also reek of a certain Jamestown swagger; they’re Protestant-work-ethic pageants masquerading as—well, again, you’ll have to tell me the draw. Holiday parties at least glitter a little; summer’s mandatory relaxation is openly hedonistic, lazy, and dumb. But fall asks you to go do farm work. I’ll go apple picking at the 7/11 or go fuck myself, buddy! Hand me your Steinbeck and save that hay ride for yourself! No haunted house can out-scare a bar when the lights come on, and all these things are about as photogenic. Unlike with other rites engineered for photography—Coachella, engagements, children—pictures at a pumpkin patch have never once in history looked good.

And yet, you’ll say—there is nothing more beautiful than a fall day.

You’re right. Fall is uncontroversially, celestially beautiful—the light trapping each afternoon in slow amber, the sensation of aerated translucence, the furious roosterish gradation of the leaves. Two years ago, I lived in a pale blue duplex in Michigan with a Japanese maple in the front lawn. Its plumage, always colored within the autumn schematic, would grow especially sharp, super-saturated, for a few weeks during fall. Blood-red, it would switch and shiver right outside my window in the wind, and I loved it, and I would go to sleep loving it, and then I’d wake up one morning with a debauched murder mattress of feather-leaves on my sidewalk and above it, a skeleton tree.

The wages of fall is death. Its beauty is predicated on mortality. The forces that push us towards comfort and industry in this season are, despite Fall People’s absolute love of them, just ways of pulling out of that undertow, which drags us and drags us—draws that incandescent honey light across the city like a bow across strings, at a frequency whose lowest register is inaudible unease. It’s true that there’s a magnificence in the way things go about dying, although even this poignancy is nauseating, as winter comes every year. But winter will come in a more personal sense eventually—the permanent one. And where will your big fucking scarf be then?


Illustration by Jim Cooke

Contact the author at jia@jezebel.com.

School to Dreaded White Girl on “Spiritual Journey”: Hell No

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School to Dreaded White Girl on “Spiritual Journey”: Hell No

Caycee Cunningham, an 8th grader at Lincoln Academy in Utah, would like for you to respect her right to wear dreadlocks.

According to FOX 13, Cunningham studied abroad in Guatemala and, upon her return, she “grew dreadlocks as part of what she calls a spiritual journey in her Hindu beliefs.” But Lincoln Academy, which has a dress code policy that prohibits unnatural hair colors and distracting styles, asked Cunningham to remove her dreads.

Cunningham’s mother, Tonya Judd, claims this is a case of racial discrimination.

“My daughter is white and there happens to be other kids in the school who happen to be other race and ethenticity [sic] and they have hair that can’t be combed, and there’s never been an issue regarding that before.”

Judd, who says Lincoln Academy is preventing her daughter’s right to religious freedom, plans to transfer Cunningham to another school if they are unable to reach an agreement.

Where Cunningham and Judd believe this to be a case involving one’s religious rights, others might interpret it as cultural appropriation or a silly teenage experiment.

Here’s an idea: Cunningham should ask herself, “What would Rachel Dolezal do?”—then do the opposite of that.

You can watch the video below.

[via FOX 13]


Burkina Faso Interim President Returns to Power After Weeklong Military Coup

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Burkina Faso Interim President Returns to Power After Weeklong Military Coup

Michel Kafando, the interim president of Burkina Faso, returned to power today after being ousted in a military coup last week. The coup, carried out by supporters of former president Blaise Compaoré, was met with protests among the Burkinabe people and condemnation from fellow leaders of West African nations.

A truce with putsch leader Gen. Gilbert Diendere was orchestrated by the Economic Community of West African States, a group of 15 countries in the region. It is unclear whether Diendre will face persecution or be granted amnesty, the New York Times reports.

http://gawker.com/burkina-faso-t...

Diendre and other members of the Presidential Security Regiment, a military unit that served as Comaporé’s presidential guard, arrested Kafando and the transitional prime minister during a cabinet meeting last week. In a statement, the putschists claimed that they were reacting against a dictum by the transitional that Comaporé supporters would not be allowed to run in Burkina Faso’s upcoming presidential election, which was postponed from October 11 to late November under the truce. It is also unclear whether the rule barring Comaporé supporters will remain in effect.

Comaporé resigned in 2014 following protests against his attempt to introduce a constitutional amendment allowing him to extend his 27-year presidential term. Diendre’s coup, perceived as an attempt to reinstate the Comaporé regime or its allies, was also met with popular uprising.

“During this ordeal we have fought together and in freedom we triumph together,” Kafando said in a statement today. “We are proud of the intrepidity of the Burkinabe people, in particular its youth.”


Image via AP. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

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This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Welcome to Midweek Madness, where we head to the magazine shop down the street, see a stack of brand new tabloids, get on our knees and pray to all the gods and goddesses for printing them on time this week. Today, Taylor Swift and Adam “Calvin Harris” Wiles are about to get married and have a baby, Kylie Jenner has been “destroyed by fame,” Tom and Katie are going to court, and Meg Ryan is broke as a joke.

And now, here’s the news.


OK!

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

I know this may come as a surprise to some of you, but Taylor Swift and Adam “Calvin Harris” Wiles are more in love than two people ever have been, and they’re getting ready to express that love by A. getting married, and B. having a baby together. They will be having a baby boy, because that’s what “Calvin Harris” is hoping for, and Taylor always gives “Calvin Harris” what he wants. Sources say she’s “sure he’s The One” and that she will be taking his last name. I say I’m sure Taylor Swift will not change her name to Taylor Wiles because she’s nothing if not a savvy manager of her personal brand. In sadder news, Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling’s relationship is hanging by a thread, and that thread is in the shape of their baby, Esmerelda. She’s literally the only thing that’s been holding their nightmare of a relationship together, but sources say she’s got one foot out the door. Apparently Eva has “secretly consulted lawyers about an effort to obtain full custody.” She and Ryan are still living together, “but she’s trying to organize her future as a single mother.” To be perfectly honest with you, I forget Eva and Ryan exist on a daily basis, not to mention the fact that they have a baby together. I mean, good luck with all that! Whatever.

And Also:

  • Kim Richards has “hit rock bottom.” I hope it’s finally the truth this time, because this is getting to be one of the more depressing stories?
  • Heidi Klum knocked back champagne in first class on a recent flight while her kids went wild in business class.
  • Mason Disick isn’t being educated because he needs to be on teevee.
  • Amber Heard and Johnny Depp do nothing but fight..
  • Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth do nothing but argue about Ava’s acting pursuits.
  • Christy Turlington and Ed Burns do nothing but avoid each other.

Grade: D+ (You get invited to Taylor Swift’s baby shower and can’t think of a good enough excuse to decline.)


In Touch

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

As you can see from the cover of In Touch, Kylie Jenner’s life has been destroyed by fame. Inside, we learn how it’s been destroyed by fame, and it ain’t pretty. Her “world is much stranger and darker than the other Kardashians,” and she has found herself “caught up in a world of sex, drugs, and violence.” A Miami rapper named Stitches is the biggest problem in her life, as he claims he has “proof that he had sex with her.” Stitches tells In Touch, “I had sex with her. We did it all. [We did] some drugs. She called me daddy. She didn’t bring up Tyga, not one time.” He’s apparently trying to blackmail her. Can someone let Kris and Caitlyn know about this? Actually, no. Get Khloe and Kourtney on the horn and send them to this guy’s house. Speaking of annoying men, Ojani Noa, Jennifer Lopez’s first husband, is getting ready to release a whole bunch of private (and potentially sexy!) home videos of the star “after a recent stalemate in court proceedings.” Since 2009, Lopez has apparently “shelled out more than $4 million in legal fees to stop the release of the tapes.” There’s apparently no “explicit sex” in the tapes, but there is ass-grabbing, profanity, and...scenes in which “she calls her mom names.”

And Also:

  • Brandi Glanville has no idea whether or not she was fired from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
  • In Touch’s “Winner of the Week” is Ahmed Mohamed.
  • Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban will have a third child via a surrogate.
  • Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted a child from Syria.
  • If Kerry Washington weren’t an actor, she’d be a “clinical psychologist.”
  • It’s the first day of fall, but every single celebrity is still paddleboarding.
  • Wear mustard yellow or I will grind you up like you’re made of mustard seeds.

Wrong Answer:

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Grade: C+ (You never meet a rapper named Stitches.)


Life & Style

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

I’m going to make this one quick, because there’s an important item you all need to get to after this paragraph. So, let’s run through this at warp speed, because most of it’s boring anyway. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are still “at war” over Suri, and the next battlefield will be in the courtroom. A stipulation of their divorce was that Katie could “modify her child support order if three years have passed,” and guess what! Three years have passed. Meanwhile, no one’s including Chris Klein in any of these conversations. Uhhh, quickly quickly, Kris doesn’t want Caitlyn ANYWHERE NEAR her boyfriend Corey Gamble. She apparently thinks “Caitlyn might try to steal Corey away from her.” I’ve had more than enough of that item, so moving on...Jessica Simpson doesn’t want more children, but her husband Eric Johnson does. This is causing problems.

And now we’ve arrived at this wonderful item, which I’ve scanned so that you may all enjoy it fully:

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

And Also:

  • Chris Pratt and Anna Faris are “one of the most giving couples in Hollywood.” But who are the most receiving?
  • Life & Style has just discovered that Britney Spears’s boyfriends are “chosen for her.”
  • Kaitlyn and Shawn may not get married after all.
  • Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton are moving in together, I guess.
  • Courtney Cox and Johnny McDaid are getting married, I guess.
  • Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are both going to rehab. Together? Separately? That part is unclear.
  • Wear
  • Fringe
  • Or
  • Die

Wrong Answer:

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Grade: F (You didn’t wear fringe.)


Star

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Meg Ryan may, in fact, have mail, but it’s mostly just third and fourth notices from credit card companies. And not only has she spent just about all of her “$45 million fortune,” she was recently dumped by her long-time boyfriend, John Mellencamp. Ryan can no longer afford her “4,000-square-foot loft” in SoHo, and is raising her 10-year-old daughter, Daisy, all alone. A source says she’s “completely focused on her kids now.” Meanwhile, I’m completely focused on this rumor that Emma Stone is responsible for Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling’s relationship troubles. (Hey! I remembered them!) A source says “it doesn’t matter how many times Ryan tells Eva that he and Emma are just friends, she knows there’s an attraction there.” The whole thing has been messing with Eva’s head. She “stops by the set and constantly calls Ryan to see what he’s up to. If she gets his voicemail, she’ll text and text until he gets back to her.” This is a little sad, but mostly it makes me want to rewatch Hitch. What a great film.

Oh:

There’s an interview with Anne Hathaway in this issue. In it, she’s asked about working with Robert De Niro, and says this:

“I could not talk around him for three weeks! I just felt like an idiot with everything I said. But we did some extreme bonding at the mall.”

At the mall! At the mall. But which mall? And why were you two at the mall? We’ll never know.

And Also:

  • Zac Efron paid a stripper to give Selena Gomez a lap dance.
  • Jared Leto has a lot of “sexual explicit” photos on his phone.
  • Britney Spears’s new boyfriend Harry Morton is a “complete cad.”
  • LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian are “desperate” to have a baby.
  • Sienna Miller has been flirting with Rob Pattinson, WHO’S ENGAGED TO FKA TWIGS.
  • Julia Roberts and Danny Moder aren’t divorced, they’re just going through a “trial separation.”
  • Kris Jenner is auditioning men to be Kourtney Kardashian’s new boyfriend.

Wrong Answer:

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Grade: D- (You accidentally show up at the Kourtney Kardashian Boyfriend casting call.)


Appendix:

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Fig 1. In Touch

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Fig 2. In Touch

This Week In Tabloids: Taylor and Calvin Will Soon Welcome a Baby to the Stage

Fig 3. Star


Contact the author at bobby@jezebel.com.

Serial Producer to Reporters: Please Respect Our Process By Not Doing Your Job

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Serial Producer to Reporters: Please Respect Our Process By Not Doing Your Job

The second season of the wildly popular This American Life spinoff podcast Serial will reportedly investigate the disappearance, capture, and release of former prisoner-of-war Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. But you didn’t hear that from us, because Serial’s producers would prefer other journalists not report what they’re working on, because it “makes our job reporting harder.”

http://gizmodo.com/the-second-sea...

That comment was reportedly made in response to a report by Maxim identifying Bergdahl—who was accused of deserting the army before he was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and subsequently traded in a prisoner swap—as the focus of the show’s second season.

It’d be, perhaps, an understandable reaction if people were scooping Serial’s reporting on a previously obscure story. But the Bergdahl case, now headed to trial, is front-page news, and plenty of people attended a preliminary hearing last week in Texas—among them, Serial host Sarah Koenig and Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal. Which is all to say, the whole thing is still essentially an active investigation.

Even so, Serial’s production manager would prefer journalists not report on the show reporting on the case.

When reached for comment, Emily Condon, a production manager for Serial and its sister program, This American Life, emailed the following response:

“We’d very much appreciate if fellow journalists would give us some room and not feel the need to attempt to dig into and try to figure out what you think we might be doing, especially since we’re actively reporting stories, and having a bunch of wild speculation out there makes our job reporting harder. Doesn’t feel very menschy. In any case, here’s what I can tell you: The Serial staff is currently working on several things simultaneously: Season 2, Season 3, and some other podcast projects. For now we’re not talking publicly about anything that we’re working on.”

Journalists doing their jobs: Doesn’t feel very menschy.


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Sex: The Kotaku Review

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Sex: The Kotaku Review

If you’re already a fan of Sex—and there are plenty of you out there—you probably don’t need this review. But if you find yourself on the fence about whether to try this much-heralded, much-argued-over activity, pull up a chair! We’ve got a lot to discuss.

Like many other extended franchise juggernauts, Sex has been around in some form or another for a long time. Originally released as an open-source application and carefully iterated upon over the years, it’s been through its fair share of reimaginings, reboots, and back-to-basics redesigns. Today’s Sex is the most technically advanced version yet, but as we all know, it takes more than eye-popping visuals and high-tech peripherals to make for a truly meaningful experience.

Sex is best understood as a freeform co-op experience where partners work together to achieve one or more user-defined goals. It’s most often played in groups of two, but sometimes more (or less). Broadly speaking, each match-up follows a similar structure–all players are helping one another to achieve a similar goal, and if they work well together, every player can “win.” Take a closer look, though, and you’ll see how creative Sex teams can be, combining inventive techniques with high-level mechanical mastery to achieve unusual but no less satisfying victories.

Sex: The Kotaku Review

Aficionados will be pleased to hear that the Sex’s visual presentation is as great as ever–even though it doesn’t seem to have progressed much as of late. Then again, why mess with something that’s already working so well? Today’s Sex features advanced graphical techniques like soft body physics and subsurface scattering; these were incredible when they were first introduced, and they stand the test of time. But with technological innovations coming faster than ever and innovative new VR technology on the horizon, it’ll be important for Sex to step up its technology in the coming years to keep pace.

As true gamers know, it’s gameplay that matters most. The mechanics undergirding Sex are deceptively simple–even if you’ve never played, you probably already understand the fundamentals. There’s some stroking, and sliding, and slapping, and smacking, and, well, you know. All of that. The beauty of Sex is that those basic actions can be combined in all sorts of interesting ways. Sex embraces what game designers call the property of “emergence,” i.e. the designed opportunity for varied combinations of simple components to create a complex end result.

Despite those strong fundamentals, Sex is not without its share of technical issues. Sex can, and often does, fall prey to many of the same kinds of bugs and glitches we’ve seen in other multiplayer games: synchronization errors, dropped connections, poor response times, and the like. Some people seem to wait around forever in the matchmaking lobby, never getting to the actual game.

Sex: The Kotaku Review

A lot of virtual ink has been spilled on forums and elsewhere complaining about these problems and begging for fixes, but it’s anyone’s guess if they will ever be addressed. Many of these problems have been present for so long that they feel inextricably tied to the game itself, and it seems like the best strategy is to learn to live with them. At this point, it’s hard to say whether the developers of Sex are even listening to any of us at all.

Sex assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the player, and isn’t always welcoming to newcomers. Once you’re finally able to initiate a round of Sex, you may wonder if you’re playing correctly. There are no pop-up tutorials to guide you–not even so much as a nav point indicating the next important spot you should be working towards.

If the lack of real-time instruction sounds scary, that’s because it certainly can be: You’re expected either to already know what you’re doing, or to basically make it up as you go and hope for the best. (Meanwhile, online walkthroughs and strategy guides vary drastically in quality and utility. Finding accurate, actionable information about Sex is almost a game in its own right.)

The good news is, you don’t have to be an expert to have fun with Sex. If you pay attention to the signals and cues provided by your teammates, you’ll probably be fine. If all else fails, button-mashing can be a surprisingly viable strategy. Just like with most games, Sex is something you can get better at if you’re willing to learn and incorporate what you’ve picked up into the next round. Even your mistakes can be quite educational.

Sex obviously draws from a deep well of creative influences, but I find it’s most comparable to From Software’s 2011 cult classic Dark Souls. Like Dark Souls, Sex can can be exhilarating when things are going well—but it can also turn into a frustrating trial-and-error slog when it feels like nothing is working. Just like in Dark Souls, the key to overcoming obstacles like these is to continually move forward with a healthy dose of caution and awareness. And like in Dark Souls, if the Hellkite Dragon sets you on fire, you’ll probably want to put that out before doing anything else.

Sex: The Kotaku Review

Lots of people focus on the physical, mechanical aspects of Sex, but it’s actually Sex’s storytelling and narrative design that make it stand apart. To an outside observer, two given rounds of Sex can look identical on a mechanical level, yet feel totally unalike to the players who are participating. That’s thanks largely to Sex’s brilliant, complex metagame. What’s the backstory between these characters? Are they partners? Rivals? Just plain horny? Have they been playing together for years, or did they just meet? The interplay between the low-level player interactions and the high-level story results in a heady mix of motivation, action, and feeling.

Additionally, Sex features an ingeniously designed branching narrative structure that’s largely defined by the choices the player makes in the heat of the moment. During a given round of Sex, you make lots of important decisions that may have far-reaching consequences.

In fact, Sex is so full of these decisions that the various ways you can approach it can be overwhelming, especially when you’re new to it. You’ll have to keep in mind that different players can have varying expectations around what the experience should be, or even what it’s meant to accomplish. Problems are more likely to occur down the line if there isn’t clear communication with your team, so it’s worth taking the time to establish where you’re coming from and listening to your co-op partner(s) to help address those issues before you get started. Lone-wolf solo players might not be used to communicating with their teammates, but if you get chatting early on in the game, you won’t regret it.

It can be difficult to rate Sex as a value proposition. On the one hand, it’s essentially free-to-play, with near-infinite replay value. On the other, Sex has a veritable shit-ton of expansions and expensive add-ons that offer the promise of altering and enhancing the experience in almost any way you could possibly imagine.

As you spend more and more time with the “vanilla” version of Sex, you’re pretty much guaranteed to want to try at least some of these items. Fortunately, the large and vibrant Sex community has also expanded the game with a mountain of user-generated content and mods over the years, though, as with most things, that content varies wildly in quality. It’s possible to throw a lot of money at Sex—just be aware that more money doesn’t necessarily equal a better experience.

Sex: The Kotaku Review

There’s no denying that Sex has become a global phenomenon, and thanks to the rise of easy-to-use video streaming sites, Sex has grown into something of a spectator sport as well, particularly over the last decade. We can now instantly watch other players, both professionals and skilled amateurs. This can be instructive and edifying, but it can also leave an ordinary person feeling inadequate.

Are you playing enough? Or maybe you’re playing too much without really scoring? While there are many ways you can feel like you’re losing, there are far fewer ways to actually lose. Sex didn’t ship with leaderboards, and I have to think that’s for a reason. This lack of built-in tallying seems like a statement from the game’s creators: Nobody’s keeping score here. You can play it however you feel is right for you—whether it’s a lot, or just a little, or even none at all. Like many of today’s best games, Sex offers its players endless freedom. It gives you an open-ended environment to explore at your own pace.

Sex isn’t perfect by any means, and does ship with a few built-in problems that really ought to have been patched by now. But if you approach it with some patience and a willingness to experiment and learn, Sex can be good–really good. At its best, it’s like realizing you’re the star of your own life, and your partner is the star of theirs. Even if you don’t think Sex is for you, I’d suggest giving it a shot. You just might be surprised by how much you like it.

Matthew S. Burns is a writer and game developer in Seattle. Follow him at @mrwasteland.

Top illustration by Sam Woolley. Images via Shutterstock.

“A CNN poll this week showed the first uptick for Clinton since June, suggesting that perhaps Clinto

Tyga Cancels Brazilian Shows, Allegedly Because of Jealous Kylie and Big Butts

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Tyga Cancels Brazilian Shows, Allegedly Because of Jealous Kylie and Big Butts

Tyga, who dates Kylie Jenner and also apparently raps, was scheduled to travel to Brazil for four shows this week, but the promoters behind the sold-out events claim Kylie made him pull out at the last minute.

The Daily Mail reports the promoters were told by Tyga’s management that he was canceling at the behest of the youngest Kardashian.

The Daily Mail also suggests, apparently based on some jokes from Brazilian social media, that Kylie may have called off the shows out of jealousy, not wanting Tyga to dump her for some fresh Brazilian hottie with a bigger ass.

In fact, it’s hard to be certain Kylie was even involved, because the promoters had a different explanation before they ever dragged her into it. The Daily Mail again:

According to reports in Brazil, Tyga is facing a $400,000 fine for breaching the contract.

The organizers, who will be refunding fans with tickets, say they had already paid his fees, transport, accommodation and production costs. The tour was set to also take him to Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte.

Originally they had been told Tyga was unable to board a flight to Brazil because he did not have a work visa, according to reports.

Neither Tyga nor Kylie has responded to the cancelation or the commotion on Brazilian social media. He’s busy pushing his new music video, “$candal,” while she sells her app.

[Photo: Getty Images]

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

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Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

Today is the first day of astronomical fall. The days are growing noticeably shorter, the leaves are already changing, and the morning air is crisp and energizing. It’s the most wonderful time of the year (only for some of us!), so naturally, summer has to linger and screw it up. Most of the United States will see warmer-than-normal temperatures for the next week or two thanks to a jet stream that’s stuck in heat mode.

Thanks, Canada

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

As with all things, it’s safe to blame Canada for our current atmospheric logjam. They’re too quiet to be innocent. The above image is a snapshot from this morning’s run of the GFS model, showing the winds at the 250-millibar level, which is right around where the bulk of the jet stream lives.

By tomorrow evening, we’ll see large troughs of low pressure off the east and west coasts of Canada, and stuck in between these troughs will be a ridge of high pressure.

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

Ridges lead to very boring weather for those stuck under their influence—not much rain, calm winds, and warm temperatures. It’s a weather blogger’s worst nightmare.

With the exception of a few twists and turns, and occasional disturbances along the way, this pattern will largely stick around through next week, keeping almost everyone east of the Rockies (and not in the Carolinas) dry and comfortable to end September.

Warmth

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

It’s going to be abnormally warm—and by quite a bit—in much of the country for the duration of Ridgepocalypse 2015: Fall of Doom. Models are painting high temperatures well above average for much of the central and eastern parts of the U.S. and Canada between now and the middle of next week. Some folks could see highs more than 15 degrees above average if it pans out.

Above you see the GFS model’s current thinking for temperature anomalies (in Celsius) on Saturday evening, with the most abnormal warmth painted across the northern Plains and south-central Canada. Advance a few days (to Tuesday afternoon), and you’ll see that the trend continues as it moseys southeastward.

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

Such large temperature anomalies aren’t exactly as bad as they sound, of course. It would suck in the dead of summer, yes, but this is late September, and average highs range from the 60s near the border to the 70s in the Midwest. The fact that you’ll be able to go without a jacket in North Dakota is noteworthy now. Welcome to fall.

CPC Outlooks

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

The latest forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center reflect model trends, showing extremely high confidence in temperatures that are above average. These maps don’t show you forecast temperatures—dark red doesn’t mean you’ll roast—but rather the forecasters’ confidence in above- or below-average temperatures. Warmer colors equate to higher odds of temperatures coming in warmer than average for the duration of the period.

Forecasters are very confident that the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley will experience an extension of late summer for the next ten days, with lower (but still considerable) odds of comfortable warmth blanketing everyone except for Oregon and Washington.

What changes when you extend that period a little bit?

Summer to Fall: Drop Dead, I'm Not Done Yet

Not too much.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The weather should get more interesting in a few weeks.

I hope.

[Images: Tropical Tidbits, author]


Email: dennis.mersereau@gawker.com | Twitter: @wxdam

My new book, The Extreme Weather Survival Manual, comes out in less than two weeks! You can pre-order it now from Amazon. It’s what the cool kids are doing.


500 Days of Kristin, Day 241: Lie Back and Think of Laguna Beach

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500 Days of Kristin, Day 241: Lie Back and Think of Laguna Beach

In a recent interview with the baby registry site Cricket’s Circle, fledging memoirist Kristin Cavallari revealed much about her life, including what she’s naming her baby after (a dog). She also offered some relationship advice:

It’s so important to make time for each other, even if it’s just waiting to eat dinner after the kids go to bed. And even if it’s takeout, light candles and make an effort to connect. Also, you gotta have sex – men need it, and it’s important for the relationship. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but you have to get it in there sometimes!

Kristin’s book on “health and fitness,” “pregnancy,” and “mommy and wife stuff” hits shelves in 259 days.


This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

Deadspin Here Is Some Impossibly Stupid NBA Ass-Eating Gossip To Brighten Your Day | io9 Woman Fools

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

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Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

The Pope is coming! Everyone get ready, and if you’re in NYC, make sure to stick anything you don’t want all holy in a plastic bag, or at least cover it with a tarp. The Pope will be in NYC soon, and he’ll be riding in the latest Popemobile, a modified Jeep Wrangler. But is this really the best possible Popemobile?

The Wrangler is an okay Popemobile, as far as open Popemobiles go. We’ve covered the history and evolution of Popemobiles here before, as well as featuring some recent ones, and even giving you some hot tips on how to make your own quick Popemobile.

http://jalopnik.com/how-to-make-a-...

But we’ve never really examined exactly how the tried-and-true Pope-in-a-box/Pope-in-a-Hole formula can be improved with the benefit of modern technology and a fresh set of eyes.

Until now. Thanks to the recent upgrade of the Jalopnik Mainframe with a Religiosity-Support Module (a chunk of the True Cross connected to an Arduino that handles translating the Holiness into USB protocols) we believe we have come up with five useful, sure-fire improvements to the standard Popemobile designs:

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

1. The Papal Crane

The whole point of a Popemobile at all is to most efficiently and effectively distribute Pope-grade holiness to the masses. Often, this is best accomplished with direct Pope-to-person contact. That’s why Pope Francis derided the all-enclosed Popemobiles as being ‘glass sardine cans.’

But even with open-air Popemobiles, there’s still a pretty big gulf between most of the people in a crowd and the Pope himself. A great way to solve this problem is with a device like this one, the Papal Crane.

A Papal Crane-equipped Popemobile would allow the Papal Crane operator (in the rotating control cab at the rear) to raise and lower the Pope into the adoring throng as needed. The effective radius of direct-Pope contact would be increased dramatically, maximizing the Pope’s visit.

Also, in situations where the Pope is in danger, the crane could quickly whip the Pope safely 50 or more feet into the air, ideally before the Pope comes to harm.

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

2. Piety-enhancing robotic exoskeleton

Maybe we’ve been thinking about this all wrong by limiting the idea of a Popemobile to just automobiles. Maybe a more radical re-thinking of the Pope-delivery problem is warranted? Maybe it’s time for a full-featured, fully motorized Papal Robotic Enhancement suit?

The Piety-Enhancement Suit concept would deliver unheard-of mobility, safety, and access to the Pope. The suit would allow a Pope to safely and effectively mingle directly in massive crowds of believers, delivering blessings and forgiveness with a strength, range, and power over 50x an un-augmented Pope, thanks to a sophisticated radio-thermal nuclear generator system, developed by NASA.

Blessings and holy thoughts could also tap into this power source and be broadcast further than ever before, thanks to a mitre-mounted antenna array that can patch directly into communications satellites.

Also, for the triple purpose of mass-blessings, long-distance baptisms, and crowd control, the Papal Exoskeleton is equipped with a pair of powerful Holy Water cannons, one in each forearm.

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

3. Pope/Coptic Pope Encounter System

It’s easy to forget that the Pope Francis is not the only Pope game in town. There’s also the Coptic Pope, Pope Tawadros II. It’s high time Popemobile designs were standardized, especially with common and compatible Papal access ports.

By designing Popemobiles with standardized Papal Containment chambers and dockable access ports, the Pope and Coptic Pope could safely interact with one another, while minimizing any hazard to outsiders or onlookers via specially hardened and Papal-emission tight Papal Containment Chambers.

The two Popemobiles could dock, port-to-port, and the access ports could be partially opened, say with a screen or mesh that would allow the co-mingling of Papal energy before allowing direct Pope-to-Pope contact.

If everything checked out okay, the access ports could open, allowing for true multi-Pope interactions, or, possibly, the rare and astounding display of a Popefight.

It’s possible this system could harness the energy that theological scientists theorize will be released during direct Pope/Coptic Pope interactions. As of yet, these reactions are unknown, which is all the more reason Popemobiles such as these should be built.

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

4. Electric/Pope-Power Hybrid

The Pope is really just sitting (or standing) on his ass (or feet) while the Popemobile drives around, and if the Pope is serious about people needing to be good stewards of the Earth, it wouldn’t kill the guy to pitch in a little, right?

That’s why an electric Popemobile with a cycle-type generator for the Pope to ride would be such a good idea. It would save energy as the Papal pedaling replenished the Popemobile’s batteries, and would be a real PR boon to the Vatican, which would be seen as really practicing what they preach.

Plus, think how ripped the Pope would get.

Here's Five Realistic Ways To Make A Better Popemobile

5. High-Blessing-Volume Papal Dragster

Generally, Popemobiles have tended to be slow-moving vehicles. That’s great if you’re right nearby, but it’s wildly inefficient when you think about the big picture of the Pope’s job when he travels: meet and interact, in a holy way, with as many people as possible. The Pope needs to simply cover more area.

That’s why a Papal dragster would work so well. Crowds would be organized into long lines, forming lanes that faced onto a long strip. The High-Blessing-Volume Papal Dragster would tear ass between the rows of people, the Pope mounted securely up front, hands free to wave, touch, and bless people as he whips by at speeds up to 160 MPH.

At the end of the row, the Papal Dragster turns, and makes another run down a new strip, zig-zagging his way through the massive crowd.

The Papal Harness would have plenty of shock-absorbing materials and allow the Pope a good amount of motion while remaining safe and secure at the front of the dragster. The Papal weight should also help minimize the chance of wheelies.

He may need a mitre with a visor, though.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

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How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

Seriously, I’m asking, because I don’t know the answer. It’s not that the jokes aren’t funny—some of them were super funny, although last night’s series premiere was definitely hit and miss. It’s more that this whole concept is just wrong for the freaking Muppets. And then there’s Miss Piggy. Sigh.

Let’s back up a bit. The Muppets mean different things to different people, because they’ve been around for so many decades at this point. These fuzzy puppets, which include talking animals as well as humans and odd creatures, are a mainstay of the children’s show Sesame Street. But they also starred in The Muppet Show, an off-kilter Vaudeville variety show in the late 1970s, where they did weird skits like “Pigs in Space.” And they’ve had a long and extremely variable movie career, with amazing highs (The Muppet Movie, The Muppets) and lows (the 1990s).

But in general, the Muppets are associated with a certain gentle humor, and a good-natured goofiness. Sure, there’s sometimes brutal slapstick, with Gonzo the stunt Muppet and his endless head injuries, or Beaker the perennial test subject for weird science experiments. And there’s always been an edge of neurosis to characters like Fozzy Bear, the terrible comedian.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

In fact, the version of the Muppets that’s appeared outside Sesame Street has generally been a bit more “adult” and slightly edgier—as can be seen in Kermit the Frog, the main character who’s able to cross over between both universes. The Sesame Street Kermit is sweeter and gentler, best known for singing about the difficulty of Being Green, while the Muppet Show Kermit is a more complicated and troubled character, including a long-running romance with the tempestuous and demanding Miss Piggy.

So there’s always been room for different interpretations of the Muppets, even within the version that’s had a long-running movie franchise.

Where this new Muppets television show goes wrong, I think, is in playing up the undercurrent of neurosis and adult self-loathing that was always present in The Muppet Show and the movies. And also, in grafting a much more self-aware, midlife-crisis-style humor onto these essentially good-natured characters.

In the new Muppets, we’re still running a show—but it’s no longer a variety show in an old theater. Instead, it’s a modern-day talk show, along the lines of The Tonight Show, with Miss Piggy as the host. Which means that the show’s lifeblood is not the theater, and the mishaps of putting on a show by the skin of your teeth, but rather a more rigid format of “behind the scenes” mishaps on a regular TV show.

And right off the bat, the show is clearly referencing fairly recent mockumentary-style sitcoms like The Office, as well as the meta-TV comedy 30 Rock. This is not a carefree-but-harried theater troupe, but a collection of exhausted and stressed-out TV producers, along with the talk show’s house band (Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, of course) plus Fozzy the warm-up comedian and announcer. And Miss Piggy, the star.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

The result is a show that’s much more “real” and less joyfully silly than anything the Muppets have ever done before, and it’s kind of depressing to watch. Even though some of the jokes work as jokes, they feel wrong, and kind of unpleasant, coming from the Muppets. There is a lot of uncomfortable humor in this episode, in which characters are faced with their own inadequacies.

Take the main subplot, in which Fozzy Bear is dating a human woman whose parents (especially her father) are prejudiced against him because he’s a bear. It’s kind of a weird mish-mash of extremely funny and kind of weirdly tone-deaf. Like the father is such a dick after a while, you wonder why people don’t just smack him in the head whereve he goes. And yet it all builds up to a scene where Fozzy’s girlfriend says it doesn’t matter if her parents don’t approve, she loves him. And Fozzy takes a beat and says “Yeah, that’s not enough,” and runs after the parents, still chasing their approval. It’s actually a funny moment... which completely destroys any investment I might ever have in the character of Fozzy or his relationship with this woman.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

Oh, and Animal making a weird remark about “too many women” also threw me right out of the show. I don’t want to think about Animal having a love life.

A lot of stuff in last night’s episode is like that. The humor is both too “edgy” and self-aware for the characters, and it’s too willing to throw the characters under the bus for the sake of a joke. Even if it were way funnier, I wouldn’t want to tune in for this every week.

It’s also disconcerting to see them walking around, thanks to some new VFX wizardry. But whatever.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

And then... there’s Miss Piggy. The big surprising reveal in this new show is that Kermit has dumped the brassy diva for a younger, more subservient pig, who just brings him food and tells him how great he is. A lot of the mechanics of the episode are about Miss Piggy being a nightmare to work with—at one point early on, Kermit tells Scooter, “It’s too late for me, save yourself” before meeting with her—and there are a lot of uncomfortable jokes about her weight and her physical appearance.

The actual plot has to do with Miss Piggy unreasonably vetoing her show’s main guest, the beautiful and talented Elizabeth Banks. And it turns out she sort of has a good reason, but we only find that out after a whole episode about how she’s an unreasonable, demanding, psychotic, unattractive bitch who doesn’t take care of Kermit the way his new pig girlfriend does.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

And in this way, too, the show is taking something that the Muppets always had but handled with sweetness and gentleness, and turning it into something ugly and extreme. The result is a parody of a strong woman that borders on misogyny at times. Miss Piggy was always the subject of a lot of jokes for her shrill, demanding personality, and her bossy nature. But this was always tempered with a lot of love and respect for the character, allowing us to laugh at her a little bit but still see why she’s awesome.

And in retrospect, a lot of why Miss Piggy was able to get away with being a total bitch in her previous incarnations had to do with Kermit’s love for her. Kermit loved her so much, and so visibly, that the audience had no choice but to love her too. As Kermit himself says early on in this episode, when he was in love with her, all her over-the-top behavior seemed quirky and intoxicating—but now it’s just awful.

How The Hell Did They Screw Up The Muppets So Badly?

The same can actually be said for the Muppets themselves. The love is gone, and all the things that were charming and delightful about them suddenly start to seem just shitty.


Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com and follow her on Twitter @Charliejane

Man Pays Tribute to Legend Rick James by Robbing Banks in His Name

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Man Pays Tribute to Legend Rick James by Robbing Banks in His Name

Rick James once told the New York Times that he had “always been a free spirit, and always gotten what [he] wanted.”

In honor of the late musician’s approach to life, one devoted fan is getting what he wants: lots and lots of cash, stuffed into a bag in wads. A man in Indiana has been showing up to banks dressed as Rick James, demanding money, and then bustin’ out of there.

In a beaded wig and dark sunglasses, he and his accomplice, dressed as Youngblood Priest from 1970s movie Super Fly, fled from Advance America bank in Indiana with an unknown amount of money, according to RTV6.

Man Pays Tribute to Legend Rick James by Robbing Banks in His Name

Police also suspect that the two men robbed the nearby Indiana Members Credit Union the following day. The impostor remains on the run, so no one knows if he’s using the money in the same manner that the real Rick James would have.

H/t New York Daily News. Photo via Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

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